Tech gallery: 2021 Sea Otter Classic, day one
Tech gallery: 2021 Sea Otter Classic, day one
More than two years after the last edition, the Sea Otter Classic is back, along with its usual panoply of new bike tech goodies to whet your appetites.
After nineteen months at home, I finally broke my moratorium on air travel and headed to Monterey, California, and wandered the open-air aisles in search of the weird and wonderful.
Here’s a sampling of what I found on day one, and stay tuned for more to come.
Upstart brand KAV is custom 3D-printing cycling helmets based on your own personal head measurements. It looks unusual, but it supposedly offers a truly perfect fit. 
It sure is… different. 
Instead of traditional EPS foam, KAV uses hexagonal cells that collapse in an impact to absorb and dissipate energy. 
KAV’s energy-absorbing liner is similar in concept to Koroyd or WaveCel. Helmets supposedly easily pass various test certifications. 
Some color would be nice, no? 
KAV measured my head while I was at the show, and will supposedly be providing me with a custom-printed test sample in the next few days. 
Even the pads are 3D-printed, and they sport a novel “constant pressure” design that can account for changes in hair volume or hats without feeling tighter on your head. 
The multiple sections of the helmet are bonded together, and also held together with little dovetail wedges. 
It’s such a radically different aesthetic that I’m not sure how well it’ll be received. It’s also very expensive at US$375, and not particularly light at just under 300 g. 
The Moon Sport MX is an out-front computer mount and front light all in one. 
Moon Sport combines a 1-watt CREE LED emitter to help light the way if you get stuck past sundown, while underneath is a more conventional flasher for “be seen” visibility. 
The standard setup is designed to attach to four-bolt removable stem faceplates. 
There’s also an optional handlebar clamp version. I’m quite intrigued, and hope to bring one of these in for a proper review. 
Redshift Sports’ new Arclight pedals incorporate front and rear LED lights to boost visibility. Built-in sensors tell the pedal which way is front and back, and automatically switch the light color to suit. Retail price will be /US$135 per pair. 
The light “modules” can also be used as standalone front or rear lights. 
More magnets! 
New from Redshift Sports is the ShockStop Pro seatpost (left), which trades the standard version’s (right) steel coil spring for lighter-weight elastomers, along with revamped links. 
Weight drops precipitously relative to the standard ShockStop seatpost, with claimed weights as low as 379 g for a 27.2 mm-diameter size with 20 mm of travel. A nice touch is the dust guard, which attaches with magnets. 
Cane Creek’s new eeSilk+ suspension seatpost (left) sports an additional 15 mm of travel as compared to the standard eeSilk (right) while only adding 28 grams. Claimed weight for a 27.2×362 mm carbon model is just 323 g. Retail price is US$320 for the carbon version, and US$220 for the aluminum one. 
Cane Creek’s new Ancora headset compression plug is unusually light at just 24 g. 
Cane Creek put in a fair bit of extra effort to shave grams from the Ancora headset compression plug. The inside of the knurled sleeve is machined away, for example, and the bolt is aluminum. 
Tannus has a new tubeless-compatible foam tire liner (in pink) to go along with its original tube-type liner (in red). 
The unusual shape supposedly still provides tire casing support and rim protection, but the open rim end works with standard tubeless valve stems. 
Claimed weights are pretty impressive for Tannus’s new tubeless-compatible foam tire inserts. Gravel models are just 70 g each. 
The DT Swiss D 232 One dropper seatpost is aimed at XC mountain bikes, but it could also be a viable option for some gravel bikes if the dimensions are compatible with your frame. Claimed weight is just 369 g. 
Helping to shave the grams are a carbon fiber inverted head, and a carbon fiber shaft (to which an aluminum sleeve is bonded to provide a consistent sliding surface). 
Fun detail: the actuator rod for DT Swiss’s D 232 One dropper seatpost is a 15-gauge stainless steel spoke.
Looking for more coverage from the 2021 Sea Otter Classic? Click here for the full collection.